


the coffee shop where honesty dwells

by bokutoma



Series: sylvix week 2019 [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Coffee Shops, Dreams, Homophobia, Panic Attacks, Soft Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Soulmates, but in a practical manner, yearning of the highest degree
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-16 02:34:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21028823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bokutoma/pseuds/bokutoma
Summary: sylvain doesn’t believe in love, not after everything he’s seen. still, if there’s anything that he’s chosen for himself, anything he himself desired, it’s felix.coffee shop au // soulmates // dreams





	the coffee shop where honesty dwells

There’s a distinct air about coffee shops that Sylvain loves. The heavy scent of espresso hangs in the air and wraps around him like a blanket, warm and comforting, and the conversations he has with his regulars buoy him throughout the day. His coworkers are great, too: Mercedes and Annette are warm and caring, and Ashe is full of wonderful stories. Dimitri is a man he’s known forever, and his boyfriend, Dedue, taciturn though he may be, is a savant when it comes to drinks. Ingrid, the one girl he’s never hit on, despite their closeness, conspires against him with Felix.

Felix.

Sylvain doesn’t believe in love, not after everything he’s seen, the way he’s been treated. He knows what he should do - settle down with a nice enough girl and have two children, work until he has a garage full of cars and a fat retirement plan. Still, if there’s anything that he’s chosen for himself, anything he himself desired, it’s Felix.

They’re soulmates.

It’s not a romantic thing; Sylvain may be as gay as can be, but he knows better than to wonder what a life like that would be like. Felix just gets him. He’s free, wild in a way that Sylvain wishes he could be, but guarded. They’re symbiotic, because as charming as he can be, Sylvain really doesn’t like people, and the type of people he attracts are easily dissuaded by Felix’s sharp stare. It works in reverse, too: if Felix’s curt words aren’t enough to scare a suitor off, Sylvain will draw them away, all honeyed words and pastry-sweet smile until they’re out the door. They complement each other, just as they always have, and he treasures their bond more than anything.

He doesn’t do permanent (doesn’t get to have it), but this is the closest thing, and frankly, he craves it.

There are always moments, though, brief ones where this fragmented pipe dream forms, forcing its way into his conscious mind. Felix will make him a latte, just sweet enough to be worth the burn of the scalding liquid, and they’ll sit together, tucked away at a table for two. _This is what it means to be in love_, he’ll idly think.

He has to remind himself that neither of them are made for soft things. Felix is a brutal thing, sharp edges and blunt head. Sylvain is a shadow, all deceit and pretty lies. They aren’t compatible.

It’s easier thinking that than the alternative: he is too afraid to try. He is too afraid to tell the truth.

He is too afraid to take Felix’s hand.

* * *

Work is quiet today, and it’s just him and Felix on duty. Sometimes he hates these shifts; when there’s a third party, it’s far easier to distract himself from the obvious truth of his best friend in front of him, soft and warm and real.

He is the only person who would dare even think of Felix that way. It makes him feel special.

The counter is cool beneath his fingertips, a pleasant contrast from the heat of the espresso machine. Outside, everything is overcast, cloudy in that delightful way Felix loves, everything on the precipice of motion, surface tension on the verge of bursting.

There’s nobody here but the two of them. This knowledge makes his palms sweat.

“Why is nobody coming in?” Felix grumbles from behind him, closer than he had realized. A shiver runs down his spine, electric and wonderful, icy and terrifying. “Isn’t this the sort of day these shitbirds love?”

Sylvain doesn’t bother pointing out that Felix likes it just as much. “Maybe they’re all at home, snuggling with their beloved.”

“You sound like Dimitri.” The look on Felix’s face is nothing short of disgust, and Sylvain can’t help the way his lips quirk up at that. “It’s sickening.”

Still, there’s something there that seems almost like longing, and amber meets the wood that encases it with a veiled gaze. Sylvain’s throat is dry, and every wall that he’s built up, every careful warning, every memory of Miklan crumbles until there’s nothing left but his best friend, standing there so open and gentle, waiting.

He’s always waited.

“Sylvain,” Felix says, and though the word is heavy, fraught with expectations he has no idea how to fulfill, it’s everything he’s ever wanted.

“Felix,” he says, and he’s crossing the meager space between them, searching for the answer that’s always been right in front of him.

Felix’s hands are callused, and Sylvain can feel the remnants of the burn he got on Monday ripe on the heel of his palm as their hands tangle together.

He has never desired someone until this moment.

“Can I kiss you?” Sylvain asks.

Then he wakes up.

* * *

Try as he might, there’s no shaking Sylvain’s dream from last night, and it’s eating him alive.

When they’d opened, Mercedes had been with them (because of course Sylvain would have the misfortune of working with Felix when he had just accidentally realized feelings for him), but by the time noon had swung around, she had been off, leaving them with nothing but each other and the clouded sky outside in the windows.

Sylvain has known he’s gay for practically forever. He’s been in love with Felix for at least that long, and so perhaps he’s actually more comfortable with the idea of all of this than he’d initially realized, at least internally. Vaguely, he wonders what it might be like to kiss his best friend.

Then he remembers he’s a Gautier, remembers slurs falling from Miklan’s mouth like tar. His older brother never really would have outed him, no matter how many times he threatened it. Not out of any sense of brotherly devotion, of course, but simply because it was leverage against the favored son, the one that wasn’t already a delinquent with a rap sheet a mile long.

Felix deserves someone who can be proud to call themselves his partner.

It’s all a moot point anyway, because there’s no way in Fódlan that Felix could ever love him in a romantic sense. They’re close, but Sylvain has too many issues, has kissed too many girls that he’s been repulsed by. It’s not who Felix is; Sylvain’s never even seen him want someone.

“What are you thinking about?”

Reflexively, Sylvain jumps about a foot in the goddamn air, smacking his hand against the still scalding steam wand.

“_Motherfucker_!”

Felix snorts. “Mothers? That’s a whole other level of fucked up.”

Sylvain laughs, strained and high. “Very funny, asshole. Can you get some ice?”

Felix grabs a cup and fills it in silence, and there is something hanging in the air between them, something Sylvain is afraid to touch. He submerged his hand in the cup and tries to focus on the chill, icy and grounding, but Felix has never one to give up easily.

“Seriously, what are you thinking about?” he asks, tone sharp like he knows already. Sylvain can’t decide whether that would be worse than having to tell him himself.

“It’s nothing,” he decides on instead, breath catching in his lungs, scraping up his throat. Tears sting at his lashes, panic is clawing at his diaphragm, and the sky is just as overcast as it had been in his dream.

“Hey!” Felix yells, and though it’s sharp and loud and should be the opposite of what he needs, his hands catch Sylvain’s shoulders and help ease him to the ground as he crumples, and it’s just what he needs. “Sylvain, breathe with me.”

Meeting his eyes is too hard, but he can watch Felix’s chest expand, try to match his own ragged air flow to it. It takes some effort, but Felix’s hands are warm, and there has never been anything more grounding.

“What’s wrong?” Felix asks once he’s stopped shaking, and his voice is like the sun on a spring day, warm and gentle. “Is it your parents again?”

“I think I’m in love,” Sylvain whispers. Realization clicks across Felix’s face, and though he’s never been one for affection, Sylvain is, so he draws him into a hug.

“Fuck your parents,” Felix snarls into his ear. Somehow, it’s much more comforting than the kind words Ingrid or Dimitri would have given him. “Chase what makes you happy.”

He pulls back, and Sylvain sucks in a razor blade of air. The look on Felix’s face might have been terrifying if he hadn’t been the beneficiary, the protective instincts of a lion flashing across his features.

“You know I’m your family, right?” he says, and it’s almost too much to bear, all of Felix’s fierceness going to bat for him. “I’m with you until we die.”

“I love _you_,” Sylvain says. Maybe it’s because he’s exhausted, vulnerable, and straddling a dangerous line, but he can’t bring himself to censor the words. He’s _tired_ of hiding things, tired of having no one to confide everything in. “Do you still feel that way?”

In response, Felix slips his hand into Sylvain’s, the corner of his lips hitching up in a half smile. “Yeah. You’re a little late to the party, idiot.”

Even though he’s still crying - when he _started_, exactly, he’s not certain - he laughs, choking on the snot in his throat in a really goddamn unattractive way. “Forgive me for having some shit to work through.”

He gets a full smile in return for that. “Alright. You owe me a coffee, though.”

And maybe it’s because he’s at one of the lowest points of his life, but Sylvain thinks this is what having a soulmate feels like.

**Author's Note:**

> hit me up on twitter if you like sylvix and poorly drawn fe characters @kingblaiddyd


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